It felt as though someone kicked me in the gut and knocked the air out of my lungs.
Now that Blue's protection was over, I realized what had happened in the past few minutes.
"Please give me a minute." I hurriedly said to Annabelle before turning in the other direction.
The past five minutes replayed inside my head. Chills spread throughout my body when I realized how mercilessly I killed the group of five.
Yes, they needed to be stopped, and killing them was the only method of stopping them. If they were not killed, their supporter would have ordered them to continue the killing.
Not to mention that they were destined to die in the first place.
< Calm down, Michael. Remember the novel. > Blue spoke calmly.
||For Annabelle, this was the moment she truly faced despair. Fortunately, a miracle happened and someone decided to be her supporter.
All she had to was agree to his terms and conditions. She forsake the tiny amount of goodness left in her heart and turned herself into an evil being.
Killing the group of humans who wanted to torture her was the start of her journey. From there onwards, she killed tons of humans and evolved to her current powerful position. ||
Yes, if I hadn't killed the group myself, Anabella would have turned into a dark version of herself by accepting an evil supporter.
In order to prevent that from happening, I entered the Vermilion building. I even managed to do that but the aftereffects of it were not nice.
I took deep breaths to calm myself and tried not to imagine the faces of the group before they were annihilated by my flames.
Fuck. Just thinking about that gave rise to pain in my chest.
< Michael, calm down. >
Blue tried his best to make me focus and prevent me from thinking about the deaths. His attempts weren't useless as I was slowly pulled back to reality.
'Ugh…'
I started to control my breathing and used one of the calming techniques I learned while being a depressed author.
With the index finger of my right hand, I traced the outline of the fingers and the gap between the fingers of my left hand. It was a way of getting rid of anxiety but it also worked on a lot of other things.
< Blue will help calm down Michael till it's required. > Blue also pitched in to help me.
I performed my calming technique while listening to his voice, hoping to become normal enough to talk to Ana.
***
Annabelle watched this scene with a complicated expression on her face. The calm and collected guy looked as if he was facing a mental breakdown.
She remembered how unaffected he looked while killing the group who abused her. Those cold eyes reminded her of her own lifeless eyes that she saw early in the morning while preparing for school.
'Well, so much for going to school.' Annabelle closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Whispers echoed inside her head but she was able to control over them. When she was being abused, she almost listened to the voices and gave in to them.
But after they were killed, the voices retracted. Now she was looking at a man mentally breaking down after killing humans.
She wondered if she would have faced the same emotions if she killed the humans. For the time being, she was saved from receiving the answer to that question.
Perhaps for once in her life, Annabelle could conquer the voices in her head…
***
After a few minutes of practicing my calming technique, I finally managed to make myself calm enough to talk to Annabelle.
"Sorry about that. The aftereffects of my skill are hard to manage." I turned around and looked at Anabelle.
"You are going to talk like this?" she asked in a surprised tone.
"Um, yeah."
I obviously knew what she meant by those words. No one talked to Annabelle while looking at her face. Most people called her ugly to her face and never talked to her while looking at her face.
I was staring directly into her eyes, something that surprised her a lot.
An awkward silence fell on the place as neither of us knew what to talk about. Even though I created her character, I didn't know much about Annabelle and her past.
I simply wrote in the novel that she had a traumatic past and faced a lot of bullying in her past. Since I never dove into details, she might have suffered more than I knew.
"What is your name?" I finally asked.
"Annabelle. Call me Ana…" She murmured.
"As you say. I am Michael." I smiled a little.
This was the first time I heard her referring to herself as Ana. Otherwise, most people knew her as 'The Ugly Queen'.
It was a title that struck fear into the hearts of numerous Blessed in the middle stages of the novel. I don't know what kind of sadistic juices I drank but those were some dark chapters that I wrote.
"Why did you save me from them and how do you know about the voices?" Ana asked with narrowed eyes.
I expected these questions and so I naturally knew the answers to this.
"I chose the alternate method. As I said earlier, I am still trying to remain a human and couldn't leave you behind when I saw you in that situation."
"Even if I believe you, how did you know about the voices?"
"I have a certain skill that lets me see when mana is activated." I pointed towards my eyes. "A black energy appeared around you."
Ana narrowed her eyes, thinking whether to trust my words or not.
Honestly, if I was in her place, I would've caught my bullshit easily. Authors had a unique way of bullshitting through things while also being able to detect bullshit being spoken around them.
"I don't believe you." She declared.
I wasn't surprised. Ana was a smart girl in high school who deliberately got low grades to hide her true potential.
"You will believe me now."
I raised my right hand in front of her face and summoned a tiny wisp of flame. I flicked the flame in her direction, controlling it to sit on her face.
"…" Ana took a step back and raised her hands to her nose. She tried removing the wisp of flame but it stayed stuck to her nose.
"Answer this question and you will realize that I am telling the truth. Do you think that I saved you from those five?"
Ana thought for a few seconds before replying, "yes, you did."
[ A different sacrifice has been made!
The sacrifice is counted towards the completion of the scenario. ]
[ Completion: 10 / 10 ]
[ The number of deaths have been achieved. The awakening energy has leaned towards the pure energy type. ]
Ana blinked in surprise after seeing the notifications. The special conditions for the scenario were cleared by me.
"But I am alive. How did it proceed ahead then?"
"Who said that sacrifices simply meant killing someone. A sacrifice is something that one does for the greater good. I saved you to complete the conditions. By saving you, I saved myself as well."
"Oh…" Ana's mouth slightly opened as she reevaluated her judgment.
+
[ Congratulations! You have unlocked the alternate method of waking up the Phoenix. ]
[ Alternate method: Gather enough pure energy for to awaken the bird. You cannot kill any person unless you are making a sacrifice.
Pure energy can be obtained by:
1. Collecting energies from various pure sacrifices.
2. Finding the hidden bird and supplying it with energy. ]
+
I managed to unlock the full details on the alternate method, showed something interesting to the viewers, attracted Inari's attention and managed to make Ana trust me a bit.
< Michael did great. >
'I know but…'
< Michael should do what he is great at. Please procrastinate processing the trauma. >
I chuckled internally at that. His words managed to cheer me up a bit and refresh my mood. I took Blue's advice seriously and pushed away the pressure building inside my chest.
"Um, can I ask a question?" Ana suddenly asked.
"Sure, go ahead."
Ana lowered her gaze before opening her mouth.
"By any chance, are you my father?"